


one half of your soul

by lilithqueen



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 02:42:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7248835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithqueen/pseuds/lilithqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Did this fandom need a daemon AU? Probably not, but it's getting one anyway. </p><p>Emil forms an unexpected bond with the Finnish scout on his new team. This would be much better if either of them spoke the same language, and if Lalli wasn't so <em>weird</em>. Future installments will probably not be very linear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one half of your soul

They said that before the Rash, there had been no daemons.

Personally, Emil thought that was probably bullshit. He couldn’t imagine a world without daemons, a world where part of your own innermost soul didn’t walk beside you. He didn’t want to imagine a world without Kirsten, who was even now ruffling her wings in irritable sympathy as he neatened his hair. Her flutelike voice held a screeching edge. “I cannot believe we had to sleep on _those_.”

“Ugh, I know.” His coat was certainly going to need brushing after this, and his hair didn’t bear thinking about.

“It wasn’t that bad, was it?” That voice, rustling like old paper, was Freydis from somewhere within the folds of Torbjörn’s coat. The grass snake sounded as put-upon as she always did.

Siv started to say something in return, but was cut off by Klemens landing on her shoulder and informing them, “The Finns are here.”

Emil scrambled to his feet. There in the doorway were the three Finns they’d been waiting for, loaded down with their bags. Kirsten hopped and scrambled up to his shoulder, puffing her chest out and holding her head high in the very picture of majesty. Putting on his best smile, he strode forward to offer a handshake to the nearest one—a young man, very attractive in a sickly sort of way, with a lynx daemon padding slowly along behind him.

The man trudged past him. He blinked in shock, but didn’t have any time to dwell on it before he was swept up in a whirlwind of very faintly accented Swedish.

“Hi, hello, hi! I’m Tuuri!, and this is Eino.”

He tried to get a word in. “Oh, hello, I’m—”

“I know, you’re our Cleanser, Emil! And this is your daemon—Kirsten, right? It’s so so _so_ nice to meet you and to finally be here—hey, nice hair! And that was Lalli, my cousin, and his daemon Simo, he’s not feeling well so don’t mind him I’m sure you’ll be great friends and us too because you seem like a nice person your job is so interesting you know and—”

Eino, a sleek round otter curled around Tuuri’s shoulders, made a noise that in a human would be clearing his throat.

“And I’m babbling. I’ll stop now.”

She was smiling, though, and Emil decided he could forgive some babbling. “It’s fine! I honestly wasn’t expecting you to speak Swedish.” It was almost enough to make him thank deities he didn’t believe in, but he certainly wasn’t going to tell her that.

“Oh, almost does, I just studied a bit more after learning Icelandic. They’re such similar languages, don’t you think?”

 _What_. Kirsten squawked incredulously in his ear; he couldn’t find it in him to do more than blink. “Uh…no, not really…”

As she passed, hurrying to stand with her cousin—who, now that Emil noticed, really did not look like he’d had an easy journey from Finland—Eino looked him up and down slowly. “I’m sure that stain will come right out.”

He choked, looking down at his shirt. _I’m dead. This is it, I have ruined my relationship with these people forever. I am doomed._ “This cannot be happening. This is the worst impression possible!”

Klemens picked up one red foot, then the other. “You’ll have plenty of time to make new impressions, Emil.”

“Of course, they could be just as horrible.” In uncharitable moments, Emil often wondered if his aunt had somehow transferred all her optimism to her daemon.

And the Finns were talking behind him in their own language. He huffed. “They’re already whispering about me!”

“I’m sure they have more important things to talk about—”

His uncle was talking. Unfortunately, it was in Icelandic. He stared at him blankly. When he felt someone approaching, he turned to find Tuuri’s cousin—Lalli, that was his name—standing next to him and looking as confused as he felt.

Kirsten eyed his daemon warily, voice lowering to the barest whisper. “I knew there was something strange about him. His daemon is _male_.”

Emil blinked. That was vanishingly rare; he’d heard rumors of it being more common among Finns and Norwegians, but he hadn’t thought he’d see it in the flesh. He couldn’t dwell on it, though, because his uncle was asking after the train to Mora and there was no _time_.

 _Shitshitshit!_ He sprinted for the door, Kirsten exploding into flight and overtaking them all; when he paused at the stair landing, she kept going. Ahead of them—too far away—the train was leaving.

He barely registered the sharp Finnish being exchanged behind him as he turned and started running down the stairs, but then Lalli was barging past him, running faster than he’d ever seen a human run—he thought he felt the barest brush of fur against him as Simo followed—and Kirsten wasn’t far behind, screaming for them to move, so he had to ignore the stitch in his side in order to avoid the greater, much greater pain of straining the tether between them.

By the time they found their seats, he was fairly sure he never wanted to move again. The cars here were fairly spacious things; they had to be, to accommodate everyone’s daemons. Simo took up a proud seat next to Lalli, watching Kirsten like a hawk as Tuuri settled in and started exclaiming over the lack of window shields.

When Eino called them blessed, he only barely managed not to scoff. Kirsten huffed through her nose. “It’s all the result of hard work! Why, if it were not for Cleansers like my Emil, we would be neck-deep in trolls—Emil?”

Normally, he’d jump at the chance to talk about his job. But Lalli was staring at the stain on his shirt, and he was fairly sure he might die of embarrassment. “…You tell them about it. I’m going to the bathroom.”

Kirsten always looked immaculate. She ruffled her feathers and nodded as he left to clean himself off. Only once he was in the bathroom, going through another handful of cheap paper napkins, did he give into the urge to swear under his breath. Nothing so far had gone right at all; this was the worst start to his new life he could have imagined. _How am I going to win glory now? The Finns are going to laugh at me and think I’m messy, and they didn’t look at all impressed by Kirsten. That Simo looks like he could eat me._

His hair and clothes were as spotless as they could get. Before he could lose his nerve, he headed back to his seat. The Hotakainens were chattering in Finnish—well, Tuuri and her daemon were chattering. Lalli and Simo seemed content to sit quietly. He cleared his throat, cutting across the conversation. “I’m going to get something to eat. Do you want anything?”

“Oh, no—we had breakfast, and Lalli doesn’t like anything.”

As Emil frowned—Lalli was skinny, he should eat—Kirsten hopped up on his shoulder. “We’ll be back!”

When they got to the dining car, Siv was there, ladling porridge into a bowl. “How do you like your new friends?”

“…” _I’m pretty sure they think I’m an idiot._ “Fine, I guess.”

Kirsten said what he’d been thinking. “They were talking Finnish the whole time! I think they didn’t want me eavesdropping. Hrmph!”

Klemens glanced up sharply, beady red eye focusing on them. “You know that’s the only language Lalli speaks, right?”

She blinked. Emil felt his face heat. She was the one that spoke, though, shifting her weight in embarrassment. “…Oh. He must be very lonely. No wonder Simo is so quiet…”

Emil quietly loaded up a ham sandwich. It wasn’t his favorite, but it was safe. They couldn’t possibly expect him to spill _that_. He made it all the way back to his seat, sandwich raised to his mouth, before he felt eyes on him and lifted his head.

And thought, _Oh_. Lalli’s eyes, it turned out, were a piercing light gray-blue the color of ice, and locked on his own with an intensity that made him tremble. He couldn’t move. He wasn’t sure he remembered how to breathe.

Tuuri’s swift thwack to the side of Lalli’s head broke the spell. As she scolded her cousin in Finnish, Emil felt his face heat up; when she switched to Swedish to apologize, he held up a hand. “It’s fine, really.” After all, it wasn’t like Lalli had done any harm.

And then he looked down at two empty pieces of bread. _What the…?_

Across from him, Lalli chewed industriously. He blinked. _Oh, I guess he was hungry after all_. “…I’ll get us some more of those.”

Simo’s rumbling purr followed him as he made his way back to the dining car for more sandwiches.

\--

The rest of the train ride passed quietly; by the time they pulled into Mora, Emil was almost dozing in his seat. Kirsten _was_ dozing, head tucked under her wing. They both woke up when the train stopped, stumbling out into the station and the decontamination chambers.

Emil always hated this part. It was disgustingly invasive; true, they never got close enough to touch your daemon, but they did everything short of running Kirsten’s plumage under a microscope. He shuddered all the way through it, only barely relaxing when he and the rest of what he supposed were now his team were bundled up in warm bathrobes in the waiting area.

As he sat, slowly feeling his racing heart return to normal, he glanced over to see how the Finns were taking it. The older woman—Taru—had clearly done this before; her raven daemon looked like he was asleep. Tuuri was still gazing around in fascination, Eino perching on her head to look over the crowd. Lalli looked almost completely disinterested, but Emil spotted his hand buried in Simo’s fur, petting it down from a state that looked like an exploded haystack. His own hair didn’t look any better, and Emil’s fingers itched to straighten it.

“Number Seventeen, Emil Västerström, to the window please! Number Seventeen!”

Kirsten sighed, “I told you not to bring those.”

“Hrmph!” Smoothing his hair back, he got to his feet and strode over to the window. “How may I help you?”

The woman on the other side of the glass frowned at him. “Sir, are you aware of the fact that your suitcase is full of explosives?”

“I’m a Cleanser; that’s my work equipment!” Honestly, the nerve of some people. “Now, let’s move this along.”

She looked singularly unimpressed. “Do you have a permit to carry these into civilian quarters?”

“…” _Shit_. “Um.”

Kirsten muttered, “Told you so.”

\--

By the time they approached his aunt and uncle’s house, he was starting to feel better. True, the thrice-damned pencil-pushers had confiscated all of his precious explosives, and Lalli turned out to take precisely no notice of the state of his own hair, _and_ they had to trudge instead of taking a carriage (Eino’s disappointed face had made Kirsten keen sadly in sympathy), but it was fun to show Tuuri and Lalli the sights as they passed. As they turned down the main streets, he couldn’t help but puff himself up a bit. “Be honest, our capital is the most impressive place you’ve ever seen, isn’t it?”

Tuuri shrugged. “It’s pretty neat, but I thought there’d be more technology around. Horses are cool, but I was expecting more mechanical vehicles.”

“Oh, it’s only the military that uses those! A spare part for a large machine can cost as much as a healthy workhorse; it’s not exactly a practical alternative for…” They’d had a car, once. It had been ancient, only part of the chassis left from its original parts, but his father had promised to teach him to drive when he was older. That had been _before_. “…Commoners. But we have phone lines to every house in the city, street lights that always work,” except when the wind shorted out the power lines, “and now we even have a public radio system. Do you have _that_ over where you live?”

Eino’s eyes had gone big and round. “Wow. Hey, hey, Tuuri, when we’re all done with our mission, can we live here? I want to live here.”

Tuuri smiled even as she shook her head. “Maybe. But no, we don’t have that there. It’s pretty impressive! I have to say, though, the coolest thing about this place is how safe everyone seems to feel—like nobody’s scared of an outbreak.”

He had the sudden, horrible feeling of standing at the edge of an invisible pit. Trying to keep his voice light, he ventured to ask, “Does that happen a lot? Where you live, I mean.”

Kirsten hissed. Tuuri ignored her. “Oh, never where we live now! But where we used to live…”

Emil listened silently as Tuuri spun images out of words, painting a mental picture that made him shiver from more than the coolness of the air. A vast system of lakes with rivers connecting them like arteries, towns dotting them like tiny beating hearts in the stillness of the Silent World, the constant knowledge that you could wake up to find any one of those towns simply wiped off the map without a trace, that if you were very lucky the inhabitants might only be dead. And she was so _calm_ about it.

By the time she was done, Kirsten had flattened herself against his neck as much as she could, trembling. Emil had never been more grateful to hear his uncle announce that they’d arrived at his home.

Especially because it meant he would see his little cousins, who burst out of the door with whoops and cries of “Cousin Emil!”

He felt warm again, picking the youngest one up and laughing with delight as all of their daemons took eagle shape like his, all of them talking at once as they tried to fill him in on everything important that he’d missed since the last time he’d visited. Kirsten squawked happily, fluttering around their heads as they barged back up the steps.

Inside was a little oasis of warmth and calm, and he sighed happily as he hung up his coat. For a few precious hours, he could relax.

Lalli’s sharp hiss snapped him out of his reverie, and he frowned at the sight of his cousins crowding him. Simo’s ears were flat back, tail switching angrily; before he could think about it, he was raising his voice. “Hey, stop that! He doesn’t like it.” _Too bad Lalli doesn’t speak Swedish. My cousins can be terrors; he deserves an apology…_

Kirsten launched herself off his shoulder, landing next to Simo. Before Emil could call her back, she very gently stretched out and preened a stray piece of fur sticking up from Simo’s spine.

Simo froze. Lalli froze. As far as Emil was concerned, the world froze, and only started to revolve again when Simo’s ears swiveled forward and Lalli breathed out slowly, shooting him a glance he couldn’t decipher. He didn’t look _angry_ , though, and Emil felt himself relax. Even better, Tuuri hadn’t noticed.

“Did you used to live here?”

Oh, she was talking to him. He shivered a little as he rerouted his brain onto a conversational track instead of letting himself dwell on what that touch might have meant. “Ah, no. My family’s always lived up northwest, by the mountains. But I went to school here, so I visited a lot. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

Giving a proper host’s tour was easier. Bosse was always happy to see him, and it was easy—so easy—to respond when Tuuri asked him about his past. Yes, he’d been privately educated in his youth; yes, he’d been a prodigy; yes, the public school system had been cruelly rigged against him, but he’d discovered his true passion as a result and was sure to come back from the Silent World as a famous hero.

He didn’t tell her about the way his tutors had sneered when they’d thought he wasn’t looking. He didn’t tell her about how his public-school classmates had teased him relentlessly for his weight, or about how Kirsten still had not settled when he’d joined the Cleansers. He didn’t tell her about the day Kirsten _had_ settled, spiraling up into the clouds with a weak cry and coming back to him like a taloned thunderbolt through the first controlled burn he’d ever seen, how the steady booms of the demolition teams had felt like his own heartbeat. She didn’t need to know.

\--

The Dalahästen was bigger than he expected, but the bunks were narrow enough that an accidental roll in his sleep would probably send him right over the edge. At least the train workers had done something to the tiny shelf next to his bunk to turn it into a perch for Kirsten, whose talons made it difficult for her to stand on flat surfaces.

And he had the bunk facing Lalli’s, which had sent a tiny charge through him when he realized it. He tried to ignore it; Lalli might be gorgeous, but he was also _weird_. What kind of person legitimately believed magic existed? Everyone knew that was just superstition.

He was slightly cheered to see that Lalli also hated the bed belts, tossing and turning with little huffs of frustration until Simo rumbled and spread himself on top of his human like a furry blanket. It was an action that put Simo’s enormous paws very close to his face, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind. “At least _you_ understand my concerns.”

Lalli tilted his head, propping himself up on his elbows as though Simo’s weight on his back meant nothing.

“He doesn’t—”

“—speak Swedish, I _know_ , Kirsten.” Still, he couldn’t help the smile on his face as he turned back to Lalli. “Good night.”

He was expecting the brief burst of Finnish in response. He was _not_ expecting the gentle pat on the forehead, a sensation that lingered even after he closed his eyes and tried—unsuccessfully—to sleep.

It wasn’t the noise. He could deal with loud noises; his training had been almost nothing but loud noises, and you learned to tune them out after a while. No, the worst part was the irregularity of them. He would nearly be falling asleep, drifting on a dark haze of semiconsciousness, when a sudden clang or screech would send him jolting awake. Kirsten was a tense, grumpy ball of feathers on her perch; next to him, Lalli tossed and turned and Simo growled steadily.

Kirsten was trying to whisper, not something her voice was really suited for. “Simo, Simo. Don’t worry! It’s just loud noises, you can sleep. _Sleep_.”

When Simo’s growl changed pitch, Emil sat up and rolled over to face Lalli. The scout was rigid, eyes sharp and focused. He took a breath. “Lalli, really. Sleep—”

Lalli grabbed his wrist, slender fingers wrapping around his hand and shoving the discarded bed belt into it. His heart skipped a beat. “Um?”

The crash flung him off the bunk, and he hit the floor with a yelp of pain. Something—he thought it was Simo—screamed. Kirsten launched herself off her perch, talons digging into his sweater as she pulled him upright. _They were under attack_. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name, and bolted to the door before he could think beyond that.

“Are we—?”

The train guard glared at him. “Everything’s under control! Go strap yourself into your bunk before you get hurt.”

Grimacing, he started to pull the door shut again. If they didn’t want his help, _fine_.

Lalli sprinted past him, and he gasped; Simo had puffed out his fur, and not even flattening himself against the doorframe was far enough away to stop it brushing against his leg as the lynx followed his human. His face burned with shame, but Lalli didn’t appear to notice; he was standing in the control room beyond, pointing at the ceiling. Simo was growling, ears flattened against his skull.

The metal plates of the ceiling were bowing inward.

“ _Breach!_ Breach in sector three! All guards to sector three, _now!”_

He held himself very still as the guards rushed past him. For a moment he couldn’t move; it would be safer to just stay where he was and let the guards handle it. That was what he was _supposed_ to do. _But—Lalli—_

Kirsten locked her talons around his arm and hauled him forward. “Lalli! Simo! They’re in the middle of that!”

He ducked through the doorway, dodged around the angry guard; for a terrifying moment he couldn’t find Lalli, and then he caught a glimpse of silver hair beyond a bulky guard and dashed forward, wrapping his arms around him before he could think. “Lalli! Come on, we can’t be here!”

They sank onto the floor together just before the giant burst through the ceiling.

All thought fled as he stared at it. There wasn’t any room for horror; as if from a long way away, he noted the stench, the rotted organs and clicking bones, the way the whole thing flexed as it attacked the nearest guard. _I’m going to die. I’m not even in the Silent World and I’m going to die. My old unit is going to point and laugh at what’s left of my corpse._

Through the cacophony of gunfire he heard Kirsten hissing, wings mantled protectively over a screeching, spitting Simo. Her rage flowed through him; acutely aware that he was unarmed, he curled tighter around Lalli. If he could do nothing else, he could at least protect the scout in his arms. One of the giant’s heads lurched in his direction and he rolled away, pressing Lalli to the floor—it would have to go through him, and maybe that would buy Lalli some time.

There was a horrible grinding squelch behind him, and the shooting stopped.

A guard remarked, casually, “…I think we went through a tunnel.”

He found he could breathe again. _It’s dead. We’re safe._

“…Help…help me…”

Something blackened and rotted scrabbled at his arm, and he screamed. Kirsten struck it like an arrow, talons and beak rending it into tatters. The reflected taste was revolting; he almost threw up, but then Kirsten was flapping around his head, harrying them until they scrambled to their feet. “Move, move!”

He moved.

It wasn’t until he was back in his bunk, strapping himself down with shaking hands, that he was hit with the true terror of what could have happened. The giant had been nearly as large as the train car; he’d seen guards bleeding where they’d been hit, seen daemons leaking Dust as they leapt back into the fray. _That could have been me and Kirsten. That could have been Lalli, or Simo_. He stared up at the ceiling without seeing it, shuddering down to his bones.

Lalli’s face appeared in his field of vision; he felt gentle hands in his hair and almost flinched before he realized the scout was petting his hair back into place. His heart was still hammering painfully against his ribs, and he couldn’t seem to draw a full breath. The giant had been _so close_ …

An unfamiliar voice rumbled something. He thought he recognized the sounds of Finnish, but that was all the warning he had before Simo’s massive paw replaced Lalli’s fingers. Images and emotion swamped him—concern, calm, the stillness of deep water, an overwhelming sense of strength, the certainty that he was and would remain alive and cared for.

He swallowed past a lump in his throat. “I…” Words seemed suddenly useless.

Outside, the sun was rising.

\--

By the time they pulled into Öresund, the night felt like a dream. He was awoken by the guards when the train stopped; since their method of waking him was to throw his entire—heavy—work uniform onto him, it was not a pleasant one. Grumbling, he rolled over and sat up.

Kirsten ruffled her feathers, tossing her head as she focused one brilliant golden eye on him. “We’re here. Get ready.”

It didn’t seem likely that breakfast would be forthcoming either. Wonderful. With a heavy sigh, he started changing into his uniform; though he could practically sense Lalli doing the same next to him, no force on earth would convince him to address him. Simo had _touched_ him, and he had no idea what to do about it. Part of him wanted to never mention it again—a disgustingly easy thing to do, since neither of them shared a language—but there was a larger part that wondered.

 _Hello, I know we’ve only just met, but you’re gorgeous and you make me feel great and I was wondering if I could kiss you. No. No, that is stupid and we will not be doing that, thank you, brain._ He huffed grumpily as he laced up his boots, felt rather than heard Kirsten snort in reply.

“Emil!”

Tuuri, fully dressed and clearly ready to face the day. Emil hated her optimism a little, especially when Eino bounced ahead of her to demand, “Were you awake last night? What happened? They told Tuuri to put her mask on but nobody tells us anything and we were worrying _all night_.”

“Um,” he began.

Kirsten hastily preened herself, taking over. “There was a giant! There was a giant, and everyone was fighting it, and I killed one of its heads—me, I did that! And Simo was really cool, he was growling and showing everyone where it was gonna break through just before it did and everyone got to shoot it! I wish we’d gotten to keep our explosives.”

Tuuri’s eyes widened, and she turned to Lalli with a flood of Finnish. Lalli answered in monosyllables, not quite looking at any of them; Emil thought he looked embarrassed, and couldn’t blame him.

By the time they stepped out into the sunshine, he almost felt normal again. This crush, or whatever it was, wouldn’t stop him from doing his job. They would head into the Silent World, salvage everything not nailed down or covered in troll guts, and return as heroes. It would be simple.

“Hey! You guys! Down here!”

He glanced down from the bridge, realizing someone was waving at them. “Someone” turned out to be a tall, wiry redheaded woman, wolf daemon barking excitedly; he recognized them from the file pictures as Sigrun and Folkvar. _So, this is our captain_. Conscious of Tuuri waving back on his other side, he cast a glance over the others. There was the famed General Trond, his own wolf daemon sitting sedately by his side, and a heavyset man. _What was his name again? Mikkel or Michael or something. And his daemon…_ He paused, squinting at the man.

Kirsten’s fear sparked through his mind before she spoke. “He doesn’t have a daemon. Emil, he doesn’t—”

He shook his head. “No, there—in his collar. See the scales?”

She slowly deflated her feathers. “…Oh. Okay. That’s better, then.”

He smiled at her, tilting his head to rub his cheek against her beak as he sent reassurance through their bond. Their teammates looked capable enough; there was nothing to worry about.

The Silent World awaited them.

**Author's Note:**

> Daemon cheat sheet:  
> Emil: Kirsten, female golden eagle  
> Siv: Klemens, male mourning dove  
> Torbjörn: Freydis, female grass snake  
> Tuuri: Eino, male European river otter  
> Lalli: Simo, male Eurasian lynx  
> Taru: Erkki, male raven  
> Sigrun: Folkvar, male grey wolf  
> Mikkel: Dagmar, female common adder   
> Trond: Gunnhilde, female grey wolf


End file.
